CHRIS HARDY: Buxton game will be a big test

Chris Hardy

Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Halesowen was incredibly frustrating to take for me and the players.

If we’d have got what we deserved, then we’d have taken a point from the game, but there were no real stand-out performances from the players on the day.

Yes, the pitch was a tricky one for us to be able to get the ball down and impose our gameplan on proceedings.

Perhaps we need to be more savvy going forward if we’re going to start picking up positive results again.

We weren’t at times on Saturday, which was frustrating.

They had a lot of the ball in the first half, but throughout the second half we were camped in their half and then they hit us right at the death with the second, that makes it look like a comfortable victory for them.

We now head into a very tough home game against a hit-and-miss Buxton side at the Turnbull Ground on Saturday.

Being at home, as I’ve said so many times in this column, makes a huge difference to us.

We know our surroundings and we know the pitch well too.

The guys will need to be on it from the first whistle on Saturday, Buxton have the quality to punish you if you’re not.

They beat us 3-0 at their place earlier in the season, but it definitely wasn’t a 3-0 game by any stretch, so we owe them one in that sense.

This weekend will be a little too soon for Andrew May to come back in I think, we’re looking more likely at next week.

He’s back in training with the lads now, so that’s a positive sign.

Obviously, you’ll know by now that we’ve let Mikey Roberts go out on loan to Guisborough Town.

This isn’t a quickfire decision, we’ve put a lot of thought into it and we feel this is in the best interests for all parties.

This will also give young Kyle Fryatt a chance to get some good minutes under his belt. He’s a talented lad and deserves his chance to shine.

Thanks for reading

Chris

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